The Gaming Den

hogarth wrote: My main complaints were:

• It was way too easy to roll up a character with no combat usefulness
• The fact that attack powers did a static amount of damage led to annoying combats (e.g. if your attack power did 30 damage, you could only hurt an enemy with 40 armor on a critical hit or by spending XP).

The first time I ran it with the Human Torch and Iron Man as PCs. IIRC The Human Torch for some reason had ridiculous Unearthly (100) armour protection from everything except cold attacks when flaming on, and only 60 Health. Since the next rank up from Unearthly is Shift-X (150) any non-cold attack that could damage him at all would carve off 50-out-of-60 health points and two-shot him.
I don't think even Kill (critical) results work if the armour fully negates the damage, though I might be wrong there (its been awhile).

CCarter wrote:I don't think even Kill (critical) results work if the armour fully negates the damage, though I might be wrong there (its been awhile).

I don't remember how it works either, but I figured I'd give it the benefit of the doubt and assume that there was some way to do extra damage other than spending Karma.

silva wrote:Huh..are you sure we sre reading the same game, Dogbert ?

I don't consider milestones because they're intrinsically tied to the railroad that is each scenario. "Milestones" are just specific points in the railroad adventure, and you get XP for doing what the GM's script specifically wants you to do at that point or being where he wants you to be. Each adventure has different milestones.

"Enjoying being led by the nose" isn't something I consider for reliable ways to get XP.

Dogbert, youre confusing character Milestones with events Milestones. The latter is tied to events (campaigns) but the first are attached to characters and can be achieved no matter what the GM prepped.

So, going back to Captain America milestones described earlier, the first time he elects his protegee he earns 1 XP. Any time he aids his protegee, he earns 3 XP. And finally, qhen he passes the team leadership to his protegee (or forces him to resign the team) he earns 10 XP.

Can you see how these work regardless of anything the GM prepped, right ? Its just a matter of group dynamics. I find this one of the most interesting aspects of the game, becaue it guarantees the players will be pursuing the exacr things that define the heroes in the comics.

silva wrote:Dogbert, youre confusing character Milestones with events Milestones. The latter is tied to events (campaigns) but the first are attached to characters and can be achieved no matter what the GM prepped.

So, going back to Captain America milestones described earlier, the first time he elects his protegee he earns 1 XP. Any time he aids his protegee, he earns 3 XP. And finally, qhen he passes the team leadership to his protegee (or forces him to resign the team) he earns 10 XP.

Can you see how these work regardless of anything the GM prepped, right ? Its just a matter of group dynamics. I find this one of the most interesting aspects of the game, becaue it guarantees the players will be pursuing the exacr things that define the heroes in the comics.

No one wants to be Robin.

lol

Does that mean what I think it meas ?

silva wrote:lol

Does that mean what I think it meas ?

Maybe? I never played any superhero game. I barely read any comicbooks. But what you described seems to me like it encourages some players being heroes and some players being sidekicks. For that I have to say: No and Fuck You.

Then don't use that Milestone. You write at least two for your character, and the Mister Cavern writes some for his adventure. You pick two to match how you intend to play your character.

So is MHR bullshit *World dogshit or bullshit FATE dogshit or some other flavor of bullshit dogshit (please explain) or actually pretty good and not like any of those other storygame catastrophes?

It's an old RPG from the '80s made by TSR, so it's got the same THAC0 philosophy for dice resolution. Karma is both your XP to advance AND your player's agency resource (hero/fate points), which you gain through succeeding at stuff, and can LOSE if your DM decides to have bad things happen to you. Late for the party? A previously unknown bomb goes off in the middle of the fight? You decide to not fight Thanos? Any of that will make you lose karma.

Um, no virgil, that's Marvel Superheroes.

Scharzkopf, what do you have against FATE exactly?

Schwarzkopf wrote:So is MHR bullshit *World dogshit or bullshit FATE dogshit or some other flavor of bullshit dogshit (please explain) or actually pretty good and not like any of those other storygame catastrophes?

Actually, its more apt to call it a mix of Fate and Dogs in the Vineyard dogshit.

Longes wrote:No one wants to be Robin.

I wouldn't know, Chumps Champions seems to have a decent following. *ducks*

Why are you correcting misconceptions about the game? You asked if the Den had any impressions on the game. If you believe people are speaking mistruths about the game, then a different forum with more actual play experience might give you better impressions.

There's a Cortex Fantasy book forthcoming if you want a Glorantha hack or whatever. MHRP is designed for "fiction emulation" surrounding how comic books work. Tony Stark gets points for being a fishmalking alcoholic who splits the party to get drunk. If you don't like supers, then the book doesn't have a lot for you. If you want to RP supers to have fun with your son, it's not like you can still give money to the writers for the book, so find a PDF that fell off the truck or something.

Im correcting Dogbert since I got the pdf and realized he is taling out of his ass.

I guess I forgot about character milestones, oh well.

Not like character milestones are any less abhorrent than story milestones anyway, so my point on them as unreliable methods of getting XP still stands.

I followed MHR (that's the recent one for those of you who can't seem to keep them apart) leading up to its release and bought a PDF shortly after. I've played in one game and ran another. At that point, I decided it wasn't for me, even though I liked many parts of it.

What I liked-

• silva actually said it right, it's got indie sensibilities that are actually in the right place; Milestones are actually a good idea, even if their implementation on a case-by-case basis was iffy, and the way you make a dicepool, reflecting many different facets of your character's physical and emotional state, your environment, etc., drives the comic-book soap opera drama home in a way that no other system really could.
• Sort of as a function of the above, the game encourages role-playing; you're on the lookout for a character hook in the narrative you can exploit for XP, and the dicepool mechanics often remind you to weave a taunt or a wisecrack into your action, or to otherwise do your action in a way that's reflective of personality, not strategy. The characters' personalities thus are evident every single action, which makes for an awesome experience in a supers game.

What I didn't like-

• The Doom Pool, aka the DM's resource mechanic. That's right, the DM doesn't have free reign during an encounter to, say, bring in another squad of goons. He'd have to expend dice from the DP to do so. Even to end an encounter early (as in, it's patently clear who's winning, let's just skip the mopping-up phase) requires a significant "purchase" out of the DP. The encounters themselves can be built however you want, but once it's running, you're locked into whatever you can buy with your DP.
• Easily, easily exploitable. There are SFX that are clear winners. It's too easy to counter-attack. There's a very real temptation to allow anything to be used for anything, which is too "indie" for my tastes.
• Lack of chargen. As has been described above.
• You activate your own weaknesses. You can gain a bennie when you declare that you run out of ammo, for instance, or whatever your power set's set weakness is. This is a matter of taste, but I find it a little too dissociative for me. I like to think and make decisions approximately the same way my character would, not as the author of my character's book would.
• The mechanics are totally and completely unpredictable. Yes, rolling more, bigger dice helps, but you just can't figure out by how much. Especially because the opposition is just as variable. There's just no sense of what a small result is or what a large result is, there's nothing objective whatsoever in this game, everything is rolled against another dicepool. It makes for a game you just can't think very much about. It means that Black Widow has a chance to lift that car, and Hulk has a chance to fail to do so. They're unlikely, and if it happens you can point to the emotional or other contextual inputs and describe the improbable success/failure through drama, I get that, but again, it makes it hard for me to approximate my character's ability to judge what I can do. Every decision I make is heavily influenced by the meta-game (how big is the DP right now? Can I afford to shut down a power set to get a bonus?). This is a matter of taste, but playing this game helped me realize just how much I like to be in the head of my character and dislike this other stuff.

Those are the major things that I can remember. It's a flavorful, punchy, beer-and-pretzels game with a lot of spunk. But, like most indie faire, it's mechanics are more flavorful than functional, and the hard rules interactions fall apart when stressed very much at all.

Re: Pregens

Yeah, the pregens are all totally imbalanced, which is true of most supers games, because as we all know, the only reason Batman can play on the same team as Superman is author fiat.

Re: Cap's Milestone

This isn't really that offensive to me. It doesn't encourage you to play as Robin, it encourages you to play as "the rookie" archetype for a session or two, as if your character is being introduced to the team. Many A-list heroes have been in that situation for a brief period. It's a great archetype, and has absolutely nothing to do with screen time. MHR does this, it encourages you to flex authorial muscles, make big splashes of dramatic personalities, etc., and IMO, that's one of its redeeming qualities, not one of its faults.

What do you do with the XP you earn? Do you use it to improve your abilities, or to add to rolls, or both?

You can use some to buy temporary powers, and you can, IIRC, make those permanent by spending more at the end of the mission. There are other things, too, but I can't remember them off the top of my head.

You can also use XP on "unlockables", but I dont know exactly how that work yet. I think the GM prepares a dozen or so unlocks for each event and show them to the players, who them spend XP on the ones they want (optionally). I suspect thry work a bit like AW Hardholder holding upgrades, only related to the events. Ie:

Saved the day 2 XP: your fight against a villain was recorded by a passing reporter and now you got famous with the local authorities. Receive Police Backup as a distinction to be used on an action scene of your choice.

Saved the day 5 XP: the same as above, but receive Swat Backup as a double d8 distinction on an action of your choice.

The Mole 3 XP: a villain decides to help your cause. Receive Security Compromised d8 when trying to infiltrate or gather info during any Transition Scene from now on.

Or something like that. Take that with a grain of salt, though.

silva wrote: Each character has a pre-made achievements patch which rewards 1XP, 3XP and 10XP in this order. So for example, Captain America milestones is..

"Mentor the Hero"

1 XP: when you choose to aid a specific hero for the first time

3 XP: when you aid a stressed out hero in recovery

10 XP: when you either give leadership of the team to your chosen hero, or force your chose hero to resign from the team.

In my experience, specific hoops that you have to jump through often get roleplayed in a very perfunctory manner. E.g. "Hey buddy, can you resign from the team? Okay, thanks. Oh wait, I changed my mind you're back on the team. Ten XP please!"

Hogarth, I think it all depends on how the group, and specially the GM, deals withthis kind of thing. I for one would never award XP in the circumstance you describe.

One thing I woud say is important to do in any game, but specially soin this one, is to communicate beforehand the style and agendas the game aims for, and make sure everybody understands are ok with it.

silva wrote:Hogarth, I think it all depends on how the group, and specially the GM, deals withthis kind of thing. I for one would never award XP in the circumstance you describe.

One thing I woud say is important to do in any game, but specially soin this one, is to communicate the style and agendas the game aims for, and make sure everybody understands it.

But if everybody is on board, you wouldn't need the XP rules in the first place.

If everybody is on board, you wouldnt need any rules in the first place, no matter the game.